Social development and social change. The social ideal as a condition for social development

17.04.2019

The social ideal, in order to remain utopian, does not have to be realizable and real at all. The set of theoretical postulates from which the idea of ​​a social ideal is built is not limited only to historical facts, there is always a certain remainder that does not fit into a concrete historical context: “Neither the construction of absolutely harmonic “last” states, nor ideas about the transition to these supernatural forms of life.

Social philosophy must show the way to the highest perfection, but it can only determine this way by general and abstract features. But above all, social philosophy must reject the idea of ​​the possible completion of human aspirations and the end of progress in the conditions of the existence of relative phenomena and earthly existence.

The social ideal is such not only because of its ideal content. Faith in a possible realization makes it an ideal. The paradox of utopian thinking is precisely that, as a utopia, it represents faith in the realization of the ideal on earth, and sees realism and vitality in the a priori inaccessibility of the ideal. From this point of view, the ideal should be both real and surreal, only such duality makes it concrete: “Let the whole of history in its external completeness be inaccessible to us, but .... humanity is able at any stage of its history through its knowledge to reach its self-consciousness. For the whole here is not the sum, not the external totality of all its parts: the whole, as an ultra-modern essence of life, is present ... in each of its parts in any segment of historical existence. If there is any meaning to history at all, then it should not consist in the fact that external historical epochs constitute a means to an imaginary final goal lying in the future, but in the fact that “its concrete diversity in its entirety is expressed by a supratemporal unity. spiritual life of mankind"8*.

The emerging contradiction between the spiritual content of the ideal and its external form (method, terms of implementation, external prerequisites for implementation) expressed the contradiction between the ideal theoretical construction and the specific historical facts necessary for its implementation. However, at the level of utopian consciousness there was a substitution of conflicting categories. 1.

On the contrary, the external form was understood as quite specific and individualized features of the realization of the ideal, which utopian thinking obviously seemed unattainable. In other words, belief in the realization of the ideal is recognized as a utopia, the assumption of its inaccessibility - as realistic thinking. The real prerequisite for the substitution was the introduction of the very concept of the social ideal into the structure of utopian thinking, which immanently denies the real nature of the existing order of things and constructs its own special world, a special utopian reality.

In the philosophy of law, the social ideal could not be described exclusively in the language of legal categories and concepts; it seemed insufficient to define it in terms of a relative and limited sphere of knowledge.

"From point of view internal logic ideas, faith in the speedy and final implementation of the social ideal rested on an insufficient understanding of what a social, political and legal ideal is. And the same understanding underlay ... belief in the universal all-saving and all-healing social mission of law ... To determine the legal ideal, we need not ... final formulas, but a purely concrete description of the necessary experience that must be produced in order to law was built on the foundations of truth and justice. Didn't this mean a rejection of the general and abstract categories of the philosophy of law, a turn to "concrete experience", that relapse of the dogmatic and formalized thinking that JI spoke about. Petrazhitsky?

In the context of legal philosophy, Petrazhitsky considered the category of the social ideal mainly as a stimulus, an incentive for the collective psyche: the social ideal (according to Petrazhitsky, "universal love") is both real and unreal. Just as history is both a way of empirical being and knowledge about it, so the social ideal is a set of empirical features and, at the same time, a spiritual symbol. In the philosophy of law, the social (legal) ideal is endowed with the same dual nature. N. Alekseev* argues: “Achieving a fair legal order is an endless task, or is its achievement really possible at certain stages of the historical process? I think that it is always possible and at the same time completely achievable for us - and this shows its true infinity. In this sense, the legal ideal is inaccessible to people in the same way as complete holiness. It is not feasible in objective world, is assigned to him. Mankind turned out to be included in two worlds of its existence at once: the ideal-spiritual and concrete-objective. “Legal reality in the perspective of such dualism appears only as “unconsciously successful socio-psychological pressure in the direction of socially necessary behavior”222, emphasizes Petrazhitsky. Earthly and intra-historical activity of people does not reach the highest goals, the ideal, the meaning of history; it cannot rise so high.

The philosophy of history faces higher tasks; it explores the origins of historical being and knowledge; considers these foundations in the unity of being and knowledge and in relation to the Absolute; reveals the meaning of the historical process. Raising the question of the meaning of history gives rise to the problem of historical Destiny. A person immersed in historical existence is at the same time a part of the macrocosm and personifies the microcosm, he is both a “fact” of history and a subject who knows it. Both aspects are refracted in the structures of legend, which implements the functions of a spiritual successive connection that passes through the human "I". The dynamic aspect of this connection, reflecting the individual, individual nature of events and facts, makes philosophical and historical comprehension possible. The uniqueness of phenomena, the unambiguity of choice just make up fate.



IDEAL SOCIAL

- English ideal, social; German Ideal, sociales. The idea of ​​a perfect state of social objects, reflecting the most significant values ​​of a given culture, which are a criterion for assessing reality and a guideline for the activity of an individual, social. groups, classes, society.

Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009

See what "IDEAL SOCIAL" is in other dictionaries:

    IDEAL SOCIAL- English. ideal, social; German Ideal, sociales. The idea of ​​a perfect state of social objects, reflecting the most significant values ​​of a given culture, which are a criterion for assessing reality and a guideline for the activity of an individual, social. groups, classes... Dictionary in sociology

    This term has other meanings, see Ideal (meanings). Ideal (Latin idealis from Greek ἰδέα image, idea) the highest value, the best, complete state of a phenomenon, an example of personal qualities, ... ... Wikipedia

    IDEAL- (Greek idea representation, idea). 1. The moral concept of moral consciousness, in which the moral requirements imposed on people are expressed in the form of an image of a morally perfect personality, an idea of ​​​​a person who embodied everything ... ... Ethics Dictionary

    SOCIAL UTOPISM A special type of consciousness that arose on the basis of a special understanding and application utopian ideas and searches. Social utopianism and utopia have common roots: unfinished history, unacceptability existing world and desire for... Philosophical Encyclopedia

    Main article: Soviet way of life "Apartment, dacha, car" is a triad that characterizes the consumer ideal that developed in Soviet society in the 1960s-1980s (in the joking form "Dacha, wheelbarrow and dog"). ... Wikipedia

    A complex of social representations oriented towards the achievement of a certain (abstract) social ideal, the subordination of social life to lofty goals, as a rule, far from the real utilitarian needs of the functioning of the social ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

    Hellenistic ideology and culture in the II - I centuries. BC e.- The social crisis and political decline of the Hellenistic states of the II-I centuries. BC e. was reflected in various ideological currents of this time. The development of slavery, which entailed a drop in the standard of living of the poor free population, ... ... The World History. Encyclopedia

    RSFSR. I. General information The RSFSR was formed on October 25 (November 7), 1917. It borders in the northwest with Norway and Finland, in the west with Poland, in the southeast with China, the MPR, and the DPRK, as well as with the union republics that are part of the USSR: to the W. with ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

    forms of government, political regimes and systems Anarchy Aristocracy Bureaucracy Gerontocracy Demarchy Democracy Imitation democracy Liberal democracy ... Wikipedia

    - á The correct stress must be given to the term in this article. This article follows... Wikipedia

Books

  • Freedom and responsibility. Fundamentals of the organic worldview. Articles on Solidarism, S. A. Levitsky. Sergey Alexandrovich Levitsky (1908 - 1983) - a prominent philosopher of the Russian diaspora, a student and follower of N. O. Lossky. This edition includes his first book - `Fundamentals of organic ...

Tradition as a form of social inheritance

TRADITIONS- social and cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation and reproduced in def. about-wah and social groups for a long time. time. T. include objects socio cultural heritage(material and spiritual values); processes sociocultural inheritance; ways this inheritance. Certain cultural patterns, institutions, norms, values, ideas, customs, ceremonies, styles, etc., act as t.

T. are present in all social and cultural systems and in known. least are necessary condition their existence. Their scope is especially wide in archaic. and pre-capitalist about-wah. T. are inherent in a variety of areas of culture, although their specific gravity and the significance in each of these areas is different; most important place they occupy in religion.

The diversity of cultures existing in the world is largely due to the diversity of the corresponding cultural T. Thanks to modern. means of communication greatly expand the possibilities of borrowing and interchange in the field of cultural heritage decomp. about-in. Borrowed elements of cultural heritage, which initially act as innovations for the borrowing culture, are often traditionalized in it later, becoming organic. part of own cultural tradition. complex.

T. form "collective memory" about-in and social groups; ensuring their self-identity and continuity in their development. Social and group differentiation has creatures that influence the interpretation and use of the national. cultural heritage. In addition, dep. groups, classes, layers have their own T. In differentiated societies, there are also many different temporal orientations, aspirations for a particular history. an era regarded as "genuinely" traditional and exemplary. Hence the multiplicity and inconsistency of traditions. cultural forms and their interpretations.

Each generation, having at its disposal def. collection of traditions. samples, not just perceives and assimilates them in finished form; it always exercises their own. interpretation and choice. In this sense, each generation chooses not only its future, but also the past.

About-va and social groups, while accepting some elements of the sociocultural heritage, at the same time reject others, so T. can be both positive (what and how is traditionally accepted) and negative (what and how is traditionally rejected).

T. as one of the fundamental aspects of a normal socio cultural development must be distinguished from traditionalism, constituting the ideology and utopia of certain states and social movements.

Social ideal and its role in culture. The Social Ideal as a Phenomenon of Social and Cultural Dynamics

The ideal is the result of the process of recognizing an object (thing, idea, person, etc.) as perfect and concentrating in itself the essence of ordinary objects that are the same to it.

Choice occupies an important place in the life of a person and society, it largely depends not only on internal motivation, but also on external determinants: a person living in a unified and homogeneous society has much less opportunities to make a choice than a person living in open society, in conditions of pluralism; Therefore, today one of the main tasks in the field of social philosophy can be defined as the development of a new theoretical model of choice as a phenomenon.

It seems that one of the key aspects is to find the ideal choice model in modern conditions.

The solution of this problem is considered possible on the basis of resolving the contradiction between the ideal of a person's choice and the new socio-cultural, economic, political processes taking place in society.

Ideas about the social ideal of choice in modern conditions did not develop immediately.

If in classical philosophy freedom is reasonable; so, in the philosophy of Kant it is one of the postulates of practical reason, then in postclassical philosophy there is a change in theoretical attitudes in solving pro-; Problems of choice: in the second half of the 19th century philosophical thought(Nietzsche, Dostoevsky), and at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries psychology (3. Freud and others) came to an understanding of the inconsistency of rationalistic ideas about man and his freedom. Russian religious philosophy turn XIX-XX centuries (N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, N. Lossky, B. Vysheslavtsev, G. Fedotov, S. Levitsky and others) considered the problem of Divine grace with the free self-determination of man. A kind of "idolatry of freedom" presented existentialism. In the works of the existentialist philosophers of the 20th century (Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, Camus, Sartre and others), the philosophical consideration of freedom was largely psychologized. Freedom appeared as a heavy burden, sometimes unbearable, giving rise to emptiness, existential anxiety and the desire to escape; the last state was analyzed in the most detailed way by E. Fromm. The problem of searching for the mechanisms of action of freedom, which would make it possible to overcome such states, became acute. Starting from the 40s of the 20th century, the problem of personality self-determination began to enter the field of view of philosophy and psychology of personality, which was considered for several decades by predominantly existentially oriented authors (Frankl, Fromm, May and others). It was only in the 1980s that the problem of self-determination (under various names) began to be seriously dealt with in the West; The most developed and well-known at present are the theories of R. Harre, E. Desi, R. Ryan, A. Bandura and J. Richlak.

In Soviet science, interest in the problem of choice and self-determination appears only in the 60s of the XX century, but this topic has not been studied in any depth.

The Social Ideal as a Phenomenon of Social and Cultural Dynamics

Stabilization of society, which reflects the relative identity of each social community, is associated with the accumulation of quantitative changes within socially significant experience. These changes are the "ideological and figurative" preparation for a cultural explosion, which here means not only the rejection of traditions, a leap, a break in gradualness in cultural development, but, first of all, a change in social ideals. Characterizing the ideal here as the highest expression of social needs, which has developed into an idea of ​​the ultimate real or utopian goals of social development (“... the term “social ideals” refers to the ideals inherent in such beliefs that are associated not with the perception of reality, but with values ​​and assessments, with the definition of good and bad, useful and harmful, Good and Evil. These ideals, remaining unconscious, impose certain norms on our actions, structure our perception of things. We turn out to be adherents of certain ideals, without even realizing that these are ideals. ”), I must in the future at least sketch out how exactly they function in society - initially by no means as an idea, concept, but only as general idea. Such a representation is a structurally articulated unity of social knowledge (mind), will and feeling. The ideal is always precisely the unity of all these moments, which from ancient times was grasped by the famous concept of "kalokagatiya", the meaning of which is in the fusion, a kind of "all-unity" of truth, goodness and beauty. An ideal is an image of future human activity consciously created by ideologues (scientists, philosophers, artists, moralists) in any of its spheres. Political, religious, legal figures function on the basis of already existing social ideals. Thus, the ideologists of the Great French Revolution developed a coherent system of views, which was shared, propagated and embodied in the activities of the leaders, tribunes, and leaders of the revolution. This fact expresses the fact that cultural determination is essentially and personal.

Here, precisely here, is that grain of truth contained in the "personal" theories of culture. This is precisely why some of our theorists have identified cultural development with the "personal" aspect of history. This view, being a vestige of the Rickertian-Maxweberian dichotomy of individualizing and generalizing methodology, is, of course, erroneous in general - it is the result of the absolutization of the personal moment in the historical development of culture, and even then only at its relatively high levels. But now at least one can point to the source and root of this absolutization: it is based on the actual real role of the subject-individual in the development of the social ideal. However, since the mentioned dichotomy has not yet been truly removed, this topic still deserves much closer attention.

So, according to the structure, the ideal is having historical character the unity of cognitive, ethical and aesthetic phenomena. Each component of this trinity, in turn, is inherent in relative independence, which often erases moments of unity in the eyes of the observer. Because of this, the moment of unity has to be revisited every time, to be rediscovered within a specialized activity, which looks like a procedure for finding meaning. Theoretically, the difficulty of such a higher spiritual activity - discovery, revealing unity - is aggravated by the fact that each of these spheres has its own internal dialectical patterns. As was shown earlier, in the sphere of knowledge and its highest expression - science - the main contradiction is the contradiction of truth and error. In theoretical activity, in this indisputable realm of logic, the main achievements are made on the basis of deviation from this logic by creating a "new logic". Therefore, scientific creativity is never reduced either to deducing what was originally contained in the premises, or to extrapolating empirical generalizations.

Approximately such a picture can be found in the analysis of the correlation of the main ethical categories. In the social dialectic of good and evil, the dynamics of social will finds expression. The problem of good and evil in all its complexity raises the question of freedom, and the identification of the criteria of freedom forces us to turn to the field of science and aesthetics, since behavior is also evaluated according to the laws of beauty. The very laws of beauty, in accordance with which the artistic and creative sphere functions, are the essence of the manifestation of the dialectic of the beautiful and the ugly, the inner being of which is the dialectic of the ideal and the real. The dialectic of the ideal presupposes the relativity of beauty. However, when reason refuses to serve in the aesthetic sphere, and moral criteria become inapplicable in this area, beauty itself is inevitably destroyed.

The ideal is always synthetic, and therefore it is wrong in our day to speak of a special aesthetic, or scientific, or moral ideal: from a theoretical point of view, these are absolutely the same thing. But such is the ideal only "in the ideal". Reality, the real functioning of the ideal, always sooner or later reveals a contradiction within the ideal - a contradiction that reflects deep social conflicts. It is in this disintegrating ideal that the contradiction of previously merged components is revealed. The fate of the components of the social ideal develops differently, in which there are points of tension developing into conflict between science and art, art and morality, morality and science, etc. However, the process of decomposition of the social ideal is accompanied by the formation of a new ideal, in which each of the three components acts as an arbitrator for the remaining two: the relationship between, say, science and art, the contradictions that have arisen between one and the other, are subject to evaluation and resolution from the standpoint of moral criteria; the contradictions of morality and science are transformed and thus approach the solution by aesthetic means, and so on. It is possible to formulate, thus, a kind of law of compensatory in the relationship of knowledge (everyday, scientific, philosophical), art and morality. cultural history of mankind contains many examples of how this law operates in practice. We all know how often in history there are situations in which impeccable, seemingly rational behavior, in addition, completely justified from the standpoint of the strictest morality, somehow looks ugly. This is worrying. It causes explosions of social emotions. Until, finally, it turns out that the behavior from the very beginning was both irrational and immoral ...

We can now concretize the idea of ​​culture as a determinant of social development. Culture determines its function as an integrative indicator of the level of relative independence public consciousness in relation to social being, it does so in such a way that, firstly, it decomposes the old social ideal - the former unity of truth, goodness and beauty; secondly, it forms a new ideal of the unity of knowledge, art and morality. In these processes, the leading role is played each time by a different component of this trinity, which gives a unique originality. human history, and creates all the wealth of culture.

The cultural processes that characterize the so-called traditional society, did not affect upper floors cultures: interactions, mutual influences, absorption of one culture by another occurred not as proper cultural processes, but as simple consequences of ethnic and socio-historical processes. It is precisely such historical situations that presuppose, as mentioned above, the use of the category "culture", since here there is a division on other grounds than a socio-historical typology based on the doctrine of socio-economic formations. In the case when one ethnic group was in systematic contact with another ethnic group, it was not difficult to notice changes in customs, similarities in norms and traditions. These influences, transformations, traces of one culture in another, being identified and systematized, gave the key to the history of the formation of an ethnos, made it possible to get an idea of ​​the historical path it had traveled.

Of course, these processes are directly related to culture, but, of course, they are not, as already noted, the subject of the theory of culture. It is not for nothing that all these phenomena are referred to the sphere of interests of ethnography, ethnology, cultural anthropology, etc., that is, one way or another, to cultural empiricism, and not to theoretical and cultural constructions.

The situation is somewhat different when, as a result of certain historical events, one people is not just “alongside” another, living in the neighborhood, but is subordinate to another, or even enslaved by it. The cultural level of these peoples and the length of stay in this kind of socio-historical situation determines the nature and degree mutual influences over a very wide range. Extreme cases are when the culture of the enslaved people is completely destroyed (often even without a trace!), and the people themselves are therefore completely assimilated, or when, on the contrary, the victorious people assimilates the culture of the defeated, preserving the original only as remnants. Between these extremes - a variety of all colors and shades of interaction. In anthropology we often find attempts to classify this kind of mutual influence, no matter how they, generally speaking, may be called. One of these attempts belongs, in particular, to the social anthropologist M. Douglas, who reduces all interactions of “life forms” to four: indifference, rejection, acceptance and adaptation.

However, strictly speaking, all these processes do not constitute, strictly speaking, the subject of interest of cultural theorists: sociologists will look for certain social structures and institutions here, historians will see in them material for restoring, reconstructing the course of events, semiotics will receive material for generalizations and classification of specific historical sign systems, etc. Only such an approach is unacceptable for any science here, which from the very beginning sees in the history of peoples some cultural-national-ethnic predetermined properties that determine the degree of influence and the nature of the relationships of various groups of people - in a word, something like the notorious passionarity L.N. Gumilyov.

Finally, the thesis itself about the absence of “higher floors” in traditional culture should be perceived cum grano salis, because as the forms of human activity developed, a hierarchy of goals of activity undoubtedly took shape, and each time the highest, extreme goal of activity that did not lose its concrete-sensual character, played the role of a social ideal, and, consequently, was such a becoming ideal in reality. Thus, it is necessary to distinguish, strictly speaking, three stages in the formation of the highest levels of culture associated with the emergence of higher social goals of activity: the stage of formation of the social ideal, the stage of functioning of the primary (spontaneously arising) social ideal, and the stage of the secondary (resulting from the process of change) social ideal. ideal. Michèle Bertrand made these distinctions very clear when she suggested:

“... there seems to be a fundamental difference between conscious and unconscious ideals, between those ideals that structure our actions without our knowledge - they are completely included in us and become, as it were, our second nature - and those ideals that we set ourselves as a goal to be achieved: between those ideals that already exist and, as it were, taken for granted, and those that we build ourselves.

And then two fundamentally different states of culture in relation to the economy: built into the economy and opposed to it, in turn, will be deployed in time and presented as three stages. At the first stage, which lasted in the history of mankind until late Middle Ages, norms of economic behavior were part of cultural norms. The emerging capitalism first required the adaptation of cultural norms to economic requirements (these processes, in fact, underlie the emergence of the norms of Protestant ethics studied by M. Weber), and then led to their more or less pronounced confrontation. The moment when humanity realizes its unity, one way or another, marks the beginning of the third stage: either humanity will perish, or it will find a way to regulate the relationship between truth and culture, “benefit” and ethics, rational and normative, etc.

This alone makes it possible to clarify a certain misunderstanding that haunts the theoreticians of culture, namely, the attribution to culture of only its highest floors. Real basis These misunderstandings reveal the real originality of being, functioning and mechanisms of cultural development at its highest levels. The absolutization of such originality is one of the main sources of the above-mentioned creativity. After all, in fact, only in those cases when we are talking about processes immanent in a given culture, such as in which elements of a kind of "self-development" of culture take place, the cultural theorist has the right to see the field of application of his research efforts. This means that the theorist-culturologist focuses not on the processes of influence, but on the processes of generation: the theory of culture is a kind of “generating grammar” of all knowledge about culture, at least in intention. And therefore, strictly speaking, it can be considered only a convention to divide the argument about the ideal into sections about structure and dynamics: everything that has been said so far about the ideal has involuntarily touched on life, and not just the statics of the ideal, because “the statics of the ideal” is a contradictory phrase . Nevertheless, the transition from discussing the problems of the structure of the ideal to considering the mechanism of its action in society is naturally perceived as a transition from statics to dynamics.

The Dynamics of the Social Ideal

Regardless of the fact generally recognized in science that culture appears along with the emergence of human society, it is logical in its own way, as it was proved more than once in this work, to consider as proper cultural processes only those that occur at the level of the spirit, that is, where mechanisms for the transformation of experience as the structure and conditions for the implementation of a particular mode of activity. What are these mechanisms?

The initial impetus for social change comes from the economy - from the objective need for economic transformations, which reveal themselves in society from the very beginning purely negatively, namely as a feeling, mood, and experience of some kind of discomfort. It is important to emphasize that the social system itself in such cases still looks like a monolith: neither in itself, nor in its comprehension, perception, experience, for the time being, it is impossible to notice any qualitative changes, shifts. And culture - norms, customs, traditions - does not undergo any changes: its ready-made forms - that is, the forms of social experience - fit all social activity, both practical, and spiritual, and spiritual and practical. And only a few individuals, most sensitive to the underground currents of social magma, catch the first signs of future changes - moreover, not through understanding social reality, not through analytical activity, and initially by no means on the basis of theoretical constructions.

The leading motive here is most often unconscious or semi-conscious experiences associated with a feeling of some general dissatisfaction with reality, which takes on arbitrarily diverse forms of external expression - from conscious rejection to spontaneous rejection, and the source of this dissatisfaction remains either completely hidden from the bearer of these experiences, or falsified, replaced by an illusory one.

At all times there have been people dissatisfied with reality, moreover, inclined to blame other people or reality itself for their misfortunes. This is a special kind of reduction, when personal failures and failures reduce to the unimportant structure of the universe. However, among those who look gloomily at the era and humanity, there are those who are not satisfied with the seemingly most ordinary and ineradicable features of reality, and the whole world order in general, the entire universe as such, and in its features that are still were considered in ordinary consciousness as inescapable from social reality, as necessary as, say, the need to eat or sleep. In fact, it is precisely this universal feeling of dissatisfaction with the universe - a feeling that, contrary to established ideas, does not belong only to the era of romantic longing combined with aspiration (the famous Sehnsucht), - arises as a foreshadowing of the era of crisis, turning point, shift, upheaval, destruction of the old way of life. Initially characteristic of individual "prophets", it gradually covers a wider (albeit different each time) circles of people. But only those who, through the rejection of everyday reality, will be able to see through at least some real contours of the future, for whom the rejection of reality will become a catalyst for such spiritual activity, the result of which is a holistic image of the future, only he acts not just as a carrier, but also as a real agent of a new culture, its creator. For it is he who is the creator of a new human goal, without which activity is meaningless.

A holistic image of the general happiness of people, not like calmness, ataraxia, nirvana, escape from reality, in essence, has always been a determinant of spiritual activity. Such a holistic image was undoubtedly the result of mental efforts, the meaning of which initially consisted in the denial of the actually existing and the creation (creation!) On this basis in the future of an internally inseparable ideal formation, which is dominated by all facets of a human being.

“... The ideal,” wrote Michelle Bertrand, revealing the internal contradictions of the ideal, “is ... a certain ultimate image of the impossibility of reuniting with oneself, an image in which there is a tension between what is and what should be, reaches its highest point and at the same time is subjected to negation, which causes both the absolute attraction of the ideal and the absolute suffering generated by it. This paradox was felt, following Hegel and Marx ... ".

Now you can see with your own eyes the main articulations of the cultural mechanism in society, about which so much has been said here. Really existing moods, experiences, premonitions, emotions do not receive expression until someone alone comes to express them. If these moods, feelings, emotions are shared by one or another social group without being able to express them, their exponent volens nolens becomes an ideologue in the broadest sense of the word. It can be a scientist, writer, critic, politician, composer, poet, moralist, religious teacher... It is important to understand that he leaves the imprint of his personality on all the main manifestations of spiritual life: the system of his ideas, images, moral maxims is objectified along with subjective moments. contained there. Becoming ideologemes, these subjective moments acquire the appearance of objectivity, and thus become similar to the truth, being a typical example of false consciousness. This is the secret and the objective meaning of the existence of a special kind of delusions, as if unremovable from consciousness, which have received a somewhat inaccurate (narrowed) name of ideological illusions. But this is the subject of a special discussion, although, to tell the truth, it would be especially appropriate here, and only considerations of general architectonics force us to postpone these considerations until the next section, which we should proceed with directly bearing in mind what has just been said.

The living image of an imaginary reality is structurally determined - otherwise its role structuring culture will be impossible. What are the moments, sides, parts and elements of this structural certainty? In answering this question, it should be borne in mind that we are not talking about everyone in general, but about the necessary and sufficient moments of the corresponding spiritual education. I believe that the social ideal, in terms of its structural certainty within the framework of social consciousness, includes the following:

knowledge (ordinary, scientific-theoretical, philosophical);

moral teachings (ordinary, socially sanctioned, theoretical);

Artistic images (folklore, nameless, author's).

Strictly speaking, without any other component of social consciousness, the ideal can "manage". The proof of this every time is the undoubted presence in society of a certain social ideal in conditions when the structure of social consciousness does not contain one or another of these components, except for those listed. Thus, there actually existed societies whose social ideal did not include religion as a necessary moment, and yet the very existence of a social ideal in the spiritual life of these societies is difficult to doubt. This, of course, does not mean that certain secular variants of religious consciousness did not exist in such a society. However, it is impossible here to allow a mixture of religion in the role of religious ideology, on the one hand, and various kinds of beliefs, convictions and religious faith, on the other. In the same way, the social ideal does not always include political ideas. An undoubted fact for the present state of science is the existence in the past of such stages in the development of an already ready, established society, when there was no state, and thus political relations. At the same time, it is difficult to question the existence of higher social goals among the representatives of these societies. This, in particular, is evidenced by myths about the pursuit of happiness, ideas about the Golden Age, etc. To the extent that the social ideal rises to the notion of the happiness of not only one person, but of the good of many or even all people, both the political structure and the laws of society are subject to assessment from the standpoint of these human ideas, and in this sense, these ideas are included in the structure of the ideal. representations are included precisely to the extent that they participate in the idea of ​​the good. Law, legal consciousness, the idea of ​​civil society as a guarantor of justice - all this, in essence, as Plato showed, is a kind of modes of the good.

True, there was a period in the history of mankind - and a very significant one in length - when all these forms of mentality, constituting the necessary moments of the ideal, seemed to be absent, being merged to the point of indivisibility in a single spiritual formation - myth. Mythological consciousness, however, is such a stage in the development of mankind when the rite, image and idea are merged into a syncretic unity, and subsequent development, destroying this primitive syncretism, destroys the main thing in myth - the possibility of being in it. The man who lived in myth is a special phenomenon that is empirically inaccessible to us: here ethnologists are forced to use exclusively the method of analyzing survivals. Since life in myth is not an attribute of one single individual, but only of a community, no psychoanalysis can help here. The indivisibility of the mythological consciousness is an obstacle to the knowledge of the early stages of the formation of ideals. However, there is no doubt that cognitive and behavioral attitudes aimed at channeling social manifestations of activity were manifested and concentrated in the myth. Moreover, if we cannot reconstruct the main thing in the structure under consideration - life in myth, then the closest approach to it accessible to us can be found precisely in the sphere of the ideological and ideal (both ideale and ideelle): since the very initial definition of the social The ideal is supposed to have its internal indivisibility - an analogue of that syncretism, which, undoubtedly, was inherent in mythological formations, insofar as we, having a set of mental analogues of life in myth, can comprehend the corresponding unity, totality.

Philosophical, scientific and everyday consciousness of modern times, having introduced clear, sharp boundaries between various manifestations of mentality, exposing their mutual non-identity, at the same time hypertrophied the significance of the cognitive relationship in its systematized forms. Having made clear the difference between the three sides of the spiritual - reason, feeling and will, enlightenment consciousness analytical ability, analysis in general, has turned into the only tool for comprehending things, so that knowledge has subordinated both feeling and will to itself in analytical activity. When in Kant it directed itself at itself, the shortcomings of the analytical method, the antinomies of consciousness, and ... the need for synthesis - the categorical imperative and the faculty of judgment - were revealed. On the basis of practice or realizable goal-setting - throwing thoughts into the sphere of ideal and subsequent practical implementation, materializing thoughts in activity - Hegel found a way to remove (Aufhebung in the Hegelian sense) Kant's transcendental idealism and its consequences - methodologism, which transfers the properties of a cognitive tool to object, object of knowledge. At the same time, however, it also did not go without losses: the role of the cognitive relation was clarified, revealed in its true nature. greatest importance-- but... nonetheless exaggerated according to the usual, one might say, standard logic of absolutization. Hegel's concept as the demiurge of reality anticipates future scientistic pictures of reality, but at the same time exaggerates the role of cognition, elevates cognition to the absolute. In Hegel, both ethical principles and beauty in its living manifestations are subordinate to the concept, and do not stand on the same level with it.

Remaining only in the form of fuzzy sketches, like the French ebauches, the subsequent Marxist ideas about the ideal, translated into the material in practice, which is understood as a world-historical process, created a springboard for a subsequent deeper understanding of the nature of the ideal - a more subtle understanding of the relationship between cognition and value forms. consciousness, but did not resolve the main difficulties associated with the opposition of truth and value, nurtured in the field of Kantianism. Those Marxists who disagree with this last assertion should remember that the people of Baden and Marburg determined the weather on the philosophical path of European consciousness for nearly half a century already after the rise of Marxism. Such phenomena do not happen by chance.

Since the quick and easy victory of Marxist truths in the bosom of humanitarian thought did not take place, the subsequent history of the relationship between cognitive, volitional and emotional components in consciousness developed along the line of the still not exhausted logic of absolutizations. Only now, for many years, post-Hegelian philosophy existed under the sign of the struggle against the hegemony of the concept (cognition), in favor of the volitional and emotional factors of mastering the world. Is it worth explaining that this second round of absolutizations is not “better”, but “worse” than the first one - after all, downplaying the role of knowledge is even more pernicious than exaggeration?! And the realization of this did not go unnoticed by the culturological thought of the highest flight - the philosophy of culture of Max Weber, who, with his logic of liberation from values, on the one hand, emphasized the importance of the rational principle, and on the other hand, internal mismatches in the structure of truth, goodness and beauty, interpreted, of course , as ideal types. Meanwhile, a way out of this chain of social hyperbole is possible only on the basis of the conceptual framework that was outlined in the early Marxist developments of the problems of the ideal and false consciousness and which later received some development in the works of individual talented Marxists, especially of the post-Plekhanov period. Italian Marxists, Austro- and Hungarian-Marxism, L. Althusser with his students and, of course, the Frankfurt School - all of them did a lot to develop precisely this side of the Marxist doctrine - the idea of ​​the practical roots of knowledge and the dialectical nature social relations, especially those that are usually called valuable.

Among these value relations, first of all, volitional relations are distinguished, which take shape in society as morality. The contradiction between good and evil is resolved in practice not in the Kantian way, but in the form of volitional relations, in acts of public will.

If the place of each of the other components of the social ideal is relatively clear in functional terms, then the solution to the question of the presence of an aesthetic and artistic component in the ideal rests on a number of debatable issues of philosophical aesthetics, each of which can be resolved only in a purely relative plan, but never getting no common solution. The essence of art - in the implementation of pure creativity, not associated with any laws outside it, based only on fantasy, imagination, intuition. These moments of creativity are present in any expedient activity, but as a unity acquiring a new quality, they are present in art and only in it. This is the essence of "figurative knowledge", as art is often and incorrectly called. Thanks to all these three qualities, which follow only very indirectly from practice, although, undoubtedly, and connected with it, the image is so vivid in nature that operations with it with great reason could be called "sensory thinking". This liveliness is the point. Any formation of such an abstract nature - such a distant goal as a social ideal - can only inspire action when it has a directly vital character, when it is presented to consciousness. Giving a directly sensual character to the highest social goal, artistic and aesthetic consciousness becomes that cement, which, itself constituting a special substance, at the same time binds together all the components of the social ideal.

In this capacity, art is privileged: like any object, a work of art is a mental formation that is subject to interpretation by thought. But the action of art, which the work itself produces, besides the possibilities of interpretation contained in it, is a thought event that overturns the ultimate goals of the actual interpretation necessary for thought. The experience of knowing is the thought that reveals the true meaning of the real; artistic experience is the thought of real presence, not of truth. The action of art is an experience of thought which does not produce any knowledge and only allows one to increase utility. It does not provide an interpretation in terms of truth and error, a sense that could be usefully exchanged. It does not tell anyone anything, it does not inform anyone about anything.

“It is an experience of surprise - from admiration up to horror - before the face of the Real,” Mark Lebeau notes, and continues: “That is why some reactions to it - in speech and in gestures - which testify to the effectiveness of works of art , are similar to some kind of interpretive nonsense - they are not subject to interpretation and do not fall under the jurisdiction of the "interpretive sciences" ...

The paradox of art, so vividly emphasized by Karl Marx, is in fact that the effect of art is outside history: the meaning contained in Greek art is dead sense, relating to the historical conditions for the emergence of this concrete historical thought; So why, asks Marx, does Greek art still give us aesthetic pleasure? The answer goes without saying, when it comes to art - the action of art as an effect of presence - this is not a truly historical sense.

This long quotation is characterized not only by an aesthetic analysis of rare depth, combining the insights of the Marxist social reading of art with the results of phenomenological training, but also by the problems it poses. This "interpretative nonsense" is the timeless representation of a possible reality, not bound by conventionality - the moment of the formation of a social ideal. The main conventionality in art is its absoluteness. And precisely because of this, the contradiction between the unconditional and the normative is growing on this soil.

The resolution of the antinomy of the stability and variability of culture has long been the task of the philosophy of culture and, consequently, of theoretical cultural studies. Each time we solve this problem anew, we must first find a source of change, and, moreover, one that lies within the limits of culture itself. Putting the ideal on the role of such a source, the researcher is faced with the need to structurally represent the ideal, that is, that which, strictly speaking, has no structure. This paradox of the ideal must be resolved first of all when considering the dynamics of culture, and the way to resolve it is to recognize this contradiction as a controversy of being and obligation:

“All realizations of the ideal inevitably turn out to be finite and limited, and the hope generated by the ideal, on the contrary, is infinite, regardless of whether the subject is aware of it or not. Thus, it turns out that disappointment, dissatisfaction, in turn, can also support faith in the ideal, giving a person energy for new actions and undertakings. The property of the ideal is that it carries within itself the gap between desire and its possible realization, or, if you like, between being and duty. If the exaltation of the Ideal-I as some kind of absolute value is in a certain way correlated with a feeling of subjective dissatisfaction, then idealization is a special fate of unconscious processes, and the same features are inherent in political or religious "idealism".

Thus, the projective, creative character of the social ideal is a conspicuous, obvious feature of the social ideal, which thus concentrates in itself the unity of the individual and social principles. The main features of the social ideal as the highest social goal and expression of the transcendent culture in its immanent manifestations are well understood. This is, first of all, the internal unity of cognitive, ethical and aesthetic moments.

The source of the formation of a new social ideal is the objective needs of a change in social existence, which are initially captured by only a few geniuses, and, moreover, are inevitably captured in an illusory, utopian form. The free creativity of the individual at the same time acts as the opposite of arbitrariness, but also necessarily includes the moment of subjective arbitrariness, associated with manifestations of individual fantasy, intuition, and imagination. In the social ideal, these individual moments rise to the universal, becoming moments social ideology. In this regard, it is important to emphasize that the new system of social ideas, which gives social significance to the individually created unity of truth, goodness and beauty, flashes a moment of truth only in brief moments of change in social ideals, the rest of the social time ideology not only reveals its illusory nature, but also indifference. to the truth of its real content: an ideology can be made from any material at hand. These considerations, it seems to me, put the last point in the dispute about the scientific nature of ideology.

In the age of the collapse of social ideals, it is especially important to understand, firstly, their absolute necessity for the development of culture, and secondly, their inevitable utopianism. Culture can exist without creativity, but it can be overcome only by creative effort carried to its limit. Such a view of the relationship between creativity and the ideal makes it possible to avoid absolutely unacceptable for scientific outlook mysticism, irrationalism and, at the same time, “diamatic” scholasticism in the interpretation of culture.

However, such a view simultaneously means a denial of the way of resolving the issue of the relationship between creative and reproductive, which is proposed in the mentioned article. This view could be considered a step towards the Marxist interpretation of culture presented here, if it were not for the abundance of inconsistencies and contradictions into which the author falls, and which cause a natural distrust of the theory of Sh.N. Eisenstadt, despite his sympathy for Marxism: he accepts either a two-term, or a three-term functional scheme of the social system; That social order arises from the interaction of many structures, then it acts as a dependent variable of many factors ... The eclecticism of the ever-memorable "theory of factors" blows a mile away from these constructions. The main trouble is that such pluralism does not clarify anything. So it remains unclear where the innovative impulse comes from - from culture or from something else. The author inclines first to one, then to another solution of the dilemma, each time leaving only one thing unchanged - the statement about the mutual connection of factors.

In reality, culture as such is conservative and does not serve as a source of any change: the root of change is in social matter. Culture is overcome in its inertia, never, in essence, acting as a driving force for change[ 21 ].

It would be logical to complete the socio-philosophical analysis of the problems of culture with remarks about how exactly the very building of cultural studies looks from the standpoint of modern social theory and what is its theoretical and cognitive status.

By the end of the 20th century, it became clear that cultural studies could claim the role of a special social and humanitarian discipline. True, for all that, it acts as a complexly organized entity. In order not to waste a lot of space on a special substantiation of this thought, which certainly needs substantiation, I will simply designate the subdisciplines of cultural studies, as it is structurally presented on the threshold of the new millennium.

The composition of cultural studies as subdisciplines should, as I believe, include: the philosophy of culture (the subject is the essence of culture, the main question is the place of culture in the universe), the theory of culture (the subject is the structure of culture, the main question is general principles transformation of culture), the sociology of culture (the subject is the social existence of culture, the main issue is the relationship between the essential and phenomenological approaches to culture), the theory of sociocultural activity (the subject is cultural animation, the main issue is the nature of innovation in culture), the history of culture ( the subject is the historical path of development of culture, the main issue is patterns historical development cultural phenomena).

This lecture by no means exhausts the content of the socio-philosophical analysis of culture - on the contrary, it remains only slightly outlined, designated. The phenomenology of culture suffered especially in this case: what kind of story about cultural studies can do without mentioning religion, morality or modern mass culture as cultural phenomena?! But even from such a fragmentary essay on philosophical and cultural issues, I believe it is easy to conclude that the near future philosophical science will certainly put culture at the center of theoretical social study.

Question 2. Ideal

1. Definitions of the ideal given by I. Kant, V.F. Hegel and others.

2. Ideal from the point of view of modern ethics

1. The concept of the ideal first arose in Christian morality as a result of awareness inconsistencies between what should be and what is :

Human dignity and real life conditions;

The appearance of an earthly man and the image of Jesus Christ.

Christian morality as an ideal claimed the image of a martyr, an ascetic.

I. Kant wrote: "The ideal is what you have to strive for and what you will never achieve," it is "the necessary guide to the human mind." Ideal , according to Kant, unchanged for all times, divorced from real life. The ideal of freedom is the freedom of the spirit.

V.F. Hegel claimed that ideal:

Is opposite (?) reality;

Develops through this contradiction;

It is realized in the fruits of the activity of the world mind.

A. Feuerbach believed that ideal is a "whole, comprehensive, perfect, educated person."

utopian socialists, considered ideal the human right to free development, which is possible only as a result of the elimination of class inequality.

K. Marx and F. Engels determined moral ideal as a component of the social ideal "the liberation of the oppressed class in a revolutionary way." The founders of Marxism believed that the ideal reflects the developing reality: "History cannot receive its final completion in some ideal state ... it is ... movement ... with which reality must conform ".

2 Ideal is a value and imperative representation (asserts the unconditional, positive content of actions), which determines the content of good and evil, due, etc.

Modern ethics considers the ideal from the standpoint anthropocentrism. Moral ideal - This:

Universal, absolute, moral idea of ​​the good, due;

The image of perfect relations between people;

The structure of a society that ensures perfect relationships between people (social ideal);

The highest example of a moral personality.

3. Personal moral ideal of a person - it is the pursuit of happiness, life satisfaction It must have social significance. Aspects of personal ideal:

Sensual-emotional (ideas of personal happiness);

Understanding the purpose and meaning of life;

Motives of activity;

Attitude towards other people.

Determining the purpose of a person's moral activity;

Motivating a person to moral deeds;

Combining what is due and what is;

Determination of the moral character of a person.

A moral ideal can be based on a social ideal. social ideal:

Determines the way of life and activities of society;

Includes moral attitudes;

Morally orients society

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Culture and social ideal
I would like to remind you that we are developing a philosophical understanding of culture. Any activity that resists the elements is cultural. After all, even culture can be destroyed in a barbaric way, but it can also be done culturally - systematically, in an organized manner, prudently. The Nazi Wehrmacht planned to destroy Slavic culture but not culture in general. There was even an expression "cultural policy in the conquered eastern territories", which was to be carried out by Himmler's department.
Culture is not "good" or "bad". It cultivates some qualities in a person, but culture itself depends on a person: if he is “good”, then culture will be the same. The life of a culture is provided by a hierarchy of values ​​(we talked about them in topic 3). But it depends on us whether we prefer this hierarchy or choose some other. All this is connected with the ideals that dominate society and which people share or renounce them. Next, we will consider the nature of the ideal and its role in culture.
Here it is worth highlighting the following questions:
- the defining role of the ideal in culture;
- the creative nature of the ideal;
- change of social ideals as a change of cultures,
For a long time, our official historical science was dominated by the view of history as a change of formations, classes, in society they saw only a socio-economic structure. It was a history of events and names. But in parallel there was a different story, a different idea of ​​it. It was not societies or classes that acted here, but people with their daily concerns, needs, goals and hopes. Many of the goals were not realized, hopes remained fruitless, but they continued to live and were reborn in other generations. This was also history, but, as it were, its internal plan, which official science did not want to notice,
Meanwhile, even Marx warned about the danger and unscientific nature of opposing society, as an abstraction, to the individual1. A look at history, where kings and leaders, estates and classes, where one type of production is replaced by another, is an incomplete look. It is also necessary, but history is not limited to events and names of heroes. Even the same events and names can be evaluated differently in historical science and in the opinion of ordinary people.
V. Soloukhin drew attention to the different attitudes of the people towards leaders peasant wars- Razin and Pugachev. It is expressed in the fact that the name of Razin has been preserved in the people's memory to this day - you can hear it in a song, and you can only learn about Pugachev from books, but they seem to have done one thing. But Razin promised freedom, and although he never brought the will to the people, the promised freedom turned out to be more attractive than actual slavery,
Or another example, in any history textbook it is written that there was no slavery as such in Russia, but real life and its awareness by people testify otherwise. Take, for example, the woeful lines of Lermontov, in which an assessment of life is given:
... The country of slaves, the country of masters
And you, blue uniforms,
And you, a people devoted to them,
If people in Russia lived with consciousness and. feeling of their slavery, then no matter how much they deny slavery officially, it can be argued that it was a fact of life.
Thus, far from everything in history “lies on the surface”, much of it is hidden in the minds, psyches of people, in everyday habits, in judgments that determine people’s behavior and the development of society as a whole. This also follows from our understanding of culture, which is a kind of attire for people - according to it, if one can judge, then only, as they say, at first glance. And for a real insight into history, it is necessary to take into account own understanding people of their lives, the values ​​and guidelines that guide them.
French, philosopher and social psychologist L. Levy-Bruhl introduced the concept of “meitality” into scientific circulation. It means a spiritual, personal cut of history, knowledge of which is necessary for a deeper understanding of it. History or society then appears from the side of spiritual culture, about the practical role which we have already spoken. At the same time, it is considered “primarily as that intellectual “equipment” that each individual person has at one time or another, and also as a structure of knowledge that he possesses as a member of a certain social group”1, that is, culture against the general background of history is a system of life orientation of people.



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